Patricia Pippert is an internationally-recognized Consultant, Trainer, and Master Facilitator.  Prior to her career in designing and facilitating high-impact training programs for many of the Fortune 500 Corporations, she enjoyed a successful career as a stage, screen, and TV actress in New York.  That background imbues her training programs with an excitement and energy that conveys the content in a memorable way, while actively engaging, involving, and inspiring her workshop participants.  She applies this same energy and interactivity, whether she is training in a traditional classroom format or in a virtual learning environment.

A good portion of Patricia’s training portfolio comes from her experience with American International Group (AIG) where she started up an internal Training Department function to support the needs of the Midwest Zone (Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, and Houston).  Patricia quickly assessed the needs of all the employees and designed and created the complete curriculum (both technical and personal/management development programs) to take  employees to the next level of their capabilities and contribution to the organization. As she built and managed the Training Department, she “practiced what she preached”  in terms of managing others and assisting them to achieve the same high standards in their consultative and facilitation skills.

Key topics that Patricia has designed and delivers include:

• Supervisory Skills
• Presentation Skills
• Conflict Resolution
• Time Management
• Performance Management
• Delegation
• Communication (Written and Spoken)
• Managing Generational Differences
• Business Etiquette
• Email Etiquette
• Telephone Etiquette
• Coaching
• Change Management
• Behavioral Styles
• Career Management
• Emotional Intelligence
• Business Process Improvement
• Team Building
• Sales Skills
• Meeting Management

Patricia took her internal consulting expertise and applied it to the firm she founded, P2 Enterprises, an external consulting firm providing training services, coaching, and organization development.  There, Patricia worked with domestic and international organizations and with teams at all levels within those organizations – from the mailroom to the CEO.  Her focus is always to help business units improve their processes and manage performance for increased motivation, productivity and profitability.  Working with a diverse client base, Patricia recognizes that every solution must be customized for the client and their particular business goals. Patricia provides practical solutions, skills and tools geared toward achieving measurable results.

Patricia’s consulting experience includes the following:

Assessing and Coaching Executive Team. Client was the Executive Vice-President of a financial services organization that had experienced double-digit growth for the previous four years.  The client’s company had a culture of stringent expense control, continued aggressive growth and disciplined business processes.  The Executive Vice-President faced the challenge of continuing to support the culture, while attempting to retain strong-performing employees in an industry of high turnover without sacrificing productivity.  Patricia worked with the Executive Vice-President to assess current leadership effectiveness and identify key improvement opportunities for the senior management team.  Patricia developed and facilitated an Executive Management Retreat (which has since become an annual event), conducting individualized assessments, executive coaching and developing and facilitating ongoing executive development plans.  As a result of her work, the executive team committed to ongoing executive coaching, turnover remained at levels below industry norms, and production remained in double digits.

Facilitating Business Process Improvement. Client was the Senior Vice-President of an international life insurance organization responsible for client and customer satisfaction of the policy owners.  The client’s team had recently tripled in size due to a major acquisition and several processes had recently become merged, confusing the staff regarding process protocol.  Patricia worked extensively with the Senior Vice-President to identify high-priority core business processes, validate the improvement opportunity in those processes, build effective project teams and develop team charters, facilitate sessions to empower the team to utilize a Six Sigma methodology, and guide the team through “quick fix” solutions and process mapping.  The team interfaced heavily with clients in focus groups to ascertain their critical customer requirements, identify critical measures necessary to evaluate success and collect data to create a baseline against which to measure process performance improvement.  Results included increased productivity, enhanced capacity, more effective partnering with customers and the establishment of ongoing process improvement through a process control system.

Developing Succession Planning. Client was the Regional Vice-President for an international financial services organization.  The region was the second largest, but most profitable, region in the country.  Due to the nature of turnover in the industry and the organization’s reputation for being an “excellent training ground,” the Regional Vice-President realized that he needed to take a proactive approach to building his region’s managerial bench strength.  Patricia worked with the Regional Vice-President to assess the requisite technical and managerial skills for each management position in the region; created a skills inventory for each position; then created and implemented an individual development plan that became the template for future succession planning.  Corporate Human Resources now administers these plans annually and monitors current responsibilities, current progress towards improvement targets, analysis of long term potential, analysis of key strengths and discussion of areas where employees may face unexpected challenges.

Designing and Facilitating Management Development Programs. Client was the Director of Human Resources for a law firm that is regularly cited as among the top five most frequently used firms by Fortune 250 corporations.  It was the client’s responsibility to develop the managerial skills of the non-legal leadership team to support the firm’s practice and to develop top organizational talent.  Patricia worked with the client to design, develop and facilitate an on-going Management Development Program to help managers, supervisors and coordinators understand the firm’s expectations of their management roles and responsibilities, goal setting and follow-up, process improvement, performance management and evaluation, critical communication opportunities, change management and talent retention.

Coaching Executive Team. Client was the Executive Vice-President of the Claims Division of a multi-national insurance organization.  The client was dissatisfied with the level of sales presentation skills of his senior management team both internally, when reporting budget goals, projections and results, and externally to clients, when teaming with other employees of the organization in demonstration of products and services.  Patricia worked with the Client to clarify gaps in performance, identify specific performance improvement opportunities, and design and facilitate a program for the assistant vice-presidents nationwide.  The program included customized skill assessments, individualized development plans, coaching and follow-up to help them achieve their goals.  Results included increased productivity, high service recognition and more effective partnering with customers.

Developing Mentoring Program. Client was the company president for a subsidiary of a U.S.-based global organization.  The client faced the challenge of excessive turnover in the industry, and his goal was to retain the fast-track, high-potential employees while giving them broader-based business experience.  Patricia worked closely with the company president to identify core skills and best practices, as well as a job rotation that would allow productivity levels to remain high, while employees were exposed to other product and service lines.  The result was the establishment of an on-going Apprenticeship Program, pairing high-potential employees with more experienced Mentors, customized development programs, and ongoing skills improvement.  The company president institutionalized the program for his company and it was replicated by other companies under the umbrella organization.

Along with her Masters of Fine Arts in Acting from New York University Tisch School of the Arts, she also holds a Masters of Organizational Management from the University of Phoenix, where she was invited to join the faculty.  She also serves as faculty for Loyola University Quinlan School of Business Executive Education Program and the American Management Association, one of the original providers of business seminars that bridged the gap between business theory and practical application of that theory.

Professional Certifications

• Behavioral Interviewing (Behavioral Technology, Inc.)
• Crucial Conversations (VitalSmart)
• DiSC Personal Profile System (Inscape Publishing)
• Dimensions of Social Styles (Wilson Learning)
• FOCUS on the Highest Priorities & 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Franklin-Covey)
• Managing Personal Growth and Helping Others Succeed (Blessing-White)
• Professional Selling Skills (Achieve Global)
• SkillScope (Center for Creative Leadership)